Hi everyone! I am so excited to be a part of this blog tour, and for my stop, I will be sharing an excerpt with you!!! Before we get to the excerpt, I’d like to first share the synopsis with you.

Synopsis:

“There’s no place like home” – that’s what I tell myself as I pull another flawless meal from the oven. This perfect house on a quiet street was supposed to be my sanctuary, a place to recover. But everything changed the moment I saw that woman in the charity shop. She triggered something dark, buried deep within my memory…

Now I’ve started forgetting small things, like locking the front door.

And bigger things, like remembering to pick my little girl up from nursery.

I feel terrified every time I pass through a particular spot in our living room.

And sometimes, when I’m alone, I’m sure I can hear a baby crying…

I think the woman in the shop knows what happened to me. But if I can’t trust myself to believe she’s real, who will?

One of the most gripping and heart-pounding psychological thrillers you’ll ever read! If you were totally hooked by, The Wife Between Us, The Girl on the Train or The Woman in the Window you won’t be able to put this jaw-dropping thriller down until it’s finished.

And now for the excerpt….happy reading 🙂

Diane looked across the dinner table at her husband and knew she wasn’t going to like what he said. It was something about his eyes, they looked at everything except her.

Paul’s puppy-like brown eyes were the first thing she’d noticed about him when they’d met, that and his towering six-foot-two height. She’d been queuing for coffee in a café near where she worked and was trying to find change for the tip bowl. Fumbling in her purse, she’d dropped a pound coin on the floor and, as she’d stooped to pick it up, so did the man behind, both of them reaching for it at the same time. Her blue eyes had met his brown. He’d laughed, so had she. Moments later, he’d stood beside her table and asked if he could join her. ‘All the other seats are taken,’ he’d explained.

Looking around the almost-empty café, she had laughed and waved to a chair.

And that was that. Paul had only planned to be in Bristol for the day, but by the time they’d finished coffee they’d arranged to meet for dinner the following Saturday. After that, they’d spent every weekend together; Paul catching the train to Bristol after work every Friday to spend the weekend with her in her tiny rented apartment. At night, the two of them curled up in her small double bed, sometimes staying inside all weekend until he reluctantly dragged himself away on Sunday evening.

Six weeks after meeting, back in the same café, he’d gone down on one knee and asked her to marry him. It was crazy. Way too fast. But when he’d said he couldn’t live without her for one more day, she’d found herself agreeing with him; she loved him, her friends loved him and, reluctant to ever drop off the wave of romantic euphoria, she had grinned and said yes.

They didn’t wait, marrying as soon as they could arrange it and, a mere two months after meeting, Paul had carried her over the threshold of his London home. ‘Welcome home, my darling wife,’ he’d announced, setting her down in the hall of the beautiful Victorian house he owned in Copse Hill.

‘Wow,’ she’d said, her eyes wide. ‘When you said you had a house, I wasn’t expecting something so grand.’

Visibly pleased with her response, he’d taken her hand and brought her into the family room that stretched across the back of the house. ‘When I bought the place, it was falling apart,’ he’d explained, ‘it was the only reason I could afford it. Back here,’ he’d waved his hands around, ‘there was a small kitchen, a couple of storage rooms and a dark, dingy sitting room. I had them all knocked into one and extended.’

‘It’s amazing,’ Diane said, trying to take it all in, her eyes sparkling. She moved into the kitchen, fingers trailing along the cool granite of the counters, her eyes taking in the top-of-the-range cooker. She stopped in front of the huge American fridge-freezer.

‘I’ve always wanted one of these,’ she said, turning to him with a smile.

He grinned. ‘There’s not much in it apart from beer.’

Opposite the kitchen, the room spread into a living room where a large comfortable-looking L-shaped sofa faced a huge TV screen. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden flooded the room with light and French doors opened onto a patio.

‘It’s just lovely,’ Diane said, seeing his face light up with pleasure at her enthusiasm. ‘Maybe we could get a big table for here?’ She sketched a space between the kitchen and living area with her hands. ‘There’s plenty of room.’

‘I usually eat in front of the TV,’ he’d admitted, ‘but I like that idea. We can go shopping at the weekend.’ He’d pulled her close. ‘We’re going to be so happy,’ he’d promised, kissing her lightly on the lips. ‘Now, why don’t I show you the bedroom?’

An hour or so later, smiling as Paul snored softly beside her on the sofa, she’d squeezed out from under his arm, grabbed her clothes and headed off in search of the bathroom, dressing as she walked.

Turning the knob on the only other door in the hall, she found a small sitting room that looked over a pretty front garden. Decorated in dated floral wallpaper and with a clashing carpet, Diane guessed Paul had not got around to redecorating.

It would, she’d thought, make a lovely room to sit in to read. She’d stood on the stairway and smiled. The house gave her a good feeling. She was going to be happy here, she thought, hugging herself with the sheer pleasure of life.

They were going to be happy here.

She’d found a job almost immediately in what was grandly called the IT department of a haulage company, but was disappointed on her first day to discover it was a new department and, for the moment, she’d be working alone. Her office was located down a quiet corridor and, apart from the odd person who rang with queries, she rarely got a chance to speak with anyone.

‘I’m not going to make new friends there,’ she’d said to Paul after her first day.

Valerie Keogh grew up reading Agatha Christie so when she started writing it seemed natural to write crime novels. She writes two different series, one based in Ireland featuring Garda Sergeant Mike West and a grittier one based in the UK featuring Nicola Connolly, a serial killer.

The Garda West series: THAT ONE MAY SMILE, CLOSE RANKS, MURDER ON CLARE ISLAND and DEATH IN FOXROCK.

Published by the reading chemist

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2 comments

I love the premise of the book, which sounds super creepy. However the blurb did not blow me away as it was not creepy at all and seems like a *really* long memory while waiting for her husbands response to something….